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After six rounds of intense struggles, the participants of the Women's Grand Prix in Lausanne are resting during International Women's Day. From Monday through Friday the twelve chess stars will fight to climb up the standings and improve their chances to get one of the two spots granted by the series for the next Candidates Tournament.
For the time being, Aleksandra Goryachkina and Alina Kashlinskaya are sharing the lead on a 'plus two' score, and are followed closely by Harika Dronavalli, Nana Dzagnidze and Zhao Xue's late replacement Zhansaya Abdumalik, all on 3½ points.
In round six, Kashlinskaya scored a fine win over Marie Sebag, Abdumalik outplayed Antoaneta Stefanova in a queenless middlegame, and Alexandra Kosteniuk recovered from her three losses so far by beating Harika — all three winners were playing White. In the most exciting draw of the day, world champion Ju Wenjun missed plenty of chances to take down Swedish veteran Pia Cramling.
Future chess stars? — a group of girls with Aleksandra Goryachkina and Anna Muzychuk | Photo: Official site
26-year-old Alina Kashlinskaya is currently number 16 among women in the official FIDE ratings list, but with her performance so far in Lausanne she has obtained 11 rating points, and if she manages to maintain this gain she will get to overcome her peak rating of 2492, achieved in May last year. As far as the series goes, her shared eighth place in Skolkovo means she needs to line up two strong performances in Switzerland and Italy to fight for the top spots.
Against Sebag on Saturday, the Russian showed superior opening preparation, leaving her French colleague relatively short on time, especially after Sebag spent over 35 minutes on move 9. This resulted in Black's queen finding herself rather stranded on opposite camp. In fact, Kashlinskaya effectively corralled her rival's strongest piece:
Beating the Sicilian: Grandmaster Bologan's Repertoire Vol.1
Out of the dozens and dozens of openings played nowadays the Sicilian Defence remains the most fascinating, entertaining and complex opening. Here White understands that Black will not be a patient lamb but will try to get at him at the very first opportunity. This series includes the Sveshnikov/Cheliabinsk Variation, the Rauzer Attack, the Maroczy Bind and a few other minor sidelines. The approach is typical for Bologan’s videos, as he tries to describe, in a compact format, plans and reactions from White’s point of view. Forget about fears concerning the tons of theory in the Open Sicilian and can get straight into the real fight!
After 21.♘e6, Sebag could do nothing but give up her queen with 21...fxe6 22.♖xf5 ♜xf5. White immediately put her own queen to work with 23.♕g4 and needed only seven more moves to secure the full point.
Sharing the lead — Alina Kashlinskaya | Photo: Official site
Excellent opening preparation was also showcased by Alexandra Kosteniuk in her game with White against Harika Dronavalli. The players followed a deep theoretical line out of a Berlin Defence with 5.♖e1, except that Harika started hesitating to make her decisions around move 11 and spent over ten minutes on move 16, while Kosteniuk continued to blitz out her preparation.
Most pieces left the board and all that was left was a bishop, a rook and a queen per side, with White getting two extra pawns on the queenside. Black still had chances to get counterplay, however, even when her opponent was an exchange up in the endgame:
Ever since the Kasparov-Kramnik WCh match (London 2000) players with the white pieces have been breaking their teeth biting on the Berlin Wall in the Ruy Lopez. The situation from White’s point of view has become precarious – ducking it is equivalent to capitulation, because in all alternative variations to the Berlin endgame White gives up from the start on the struggle for an opening advantage. White has to find ways to crack open Black’s defence. There is hardly any other grandmaster of his class who is as well known for his uncompromising and creative play as the Latvian Alexei Shirov.
Harika's 51...♛c2+ was inaccurate due to 52.♕d2, when capturing the a-pawn with 52...♛xa4 is less relevant than allowing White both to defend along the second rank and coordinate her heavy pieces. There followed 53.♕e2 ♝f5 54.♖d8 and Black's 54...♛b4 gave way to a mate-in-four position after 55.♕a2. Harika resigned.
Former world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk chatting with press officer Yannick Pelletier | Photo: Official site
Another opening surprise was uncorked by Zhansaya Abdumalik, who had Antoaneta Stefanova thinking long and hard from move 5 after playing the Scotch. In a queenless middlegame, Stefanova failed to assess the dangers of White getting a passed pawn on the a-file:
In this DVD, Parimarjan Negi looks at the latest revolution in Scotch theory that has completely changed white’s plans, and once again brought back the interest of the world’s elite.
Instead of 30...♜ad8, the former world champion from Bulgaria needed to include 30...axb3. In the game, after 31.bxa4, White managed to create enough play on the queenside to increase her advantage gradually. Abdumalik was quite precise in conversion and got the full point after 51 moves.
Zhansaya Abdumalik surprised Antoaneta Stefanova in the opening | Photo: Official site
